Nevada lawmakers are once again taking the lead in a bipartisan effort to reverse a court ruling adopting a stricter interpretation of a 150-year-old federal mining law.
Mining developers in the West have grappled with the aftermath of a 2022 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that essentially restricted mining companies from dumping waste on federal lands where they did not have a valid mineral claim—a practice that had gone on unimpeded for decades.
While federal mining law allows companies to mine on federal land if they have a valid mining claim, the federal court decision ruled that companies are not guaranteed the right to use adjacent federal land without valuable minerals for related mining purposes—such as waste rock disposal or running power lines.
The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act of 2025—introduced by Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV-02)—passed the Republican-led House of Representatives with a 219 to 197 vote during the lame-duck session in December.
While the legislation passed mostly along party-lines, the bill picked up nine Democrats, including Rep. Steven Horsford (R-NV-04), a cosponsor of the bill. Only one Republican voted against the bill, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Nevada’s other Democratic representatives, Susie Lee and Dina Titus, have raised concerns with the bill’s broad language, and voted against its passage last month.
Western legislators have largely led the effort to reverse the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals “Rosemont decision” which found that the federal government erred when it approved the Rosemont Copper Company’s plan to dump mining waste on U.S. Forest Service land in Arizona where the company could not prove they had a valid mineral claim.
“The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act restores decades of established precedent, repairs a permitting process undermined by the Rosemont decision, and gives domestic mining operations the certainty they need to compete aggressively and win,” said Amodei in a statement on its passage.
The bill would essentially reverse the ruling by removing a provision in the General Mining Act of 1872 that mining companies must show a mineral deposit is present before building roads and other support facilities at a potential mining site. The bill would also create an abandoned hard rock mine fund to support reclamation programs.
“Streamlining the hardrock mining process will create good jobs and strengthen our energy sector. At the same time, this legislation delivers more resources for the Silver State to clean up past mining-related contaminants in our environment,” Horsford said in a statement on its passage.
Last year, Amodei introduced a similar bill which also passed the Republican-controlled House and was included in a larger mining reform package in the Senate. But that package, shepherded by former independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, fell apart during the lame duck session despite a strong bipartisan desire to implement permitting reform.
Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is sponsoring a companion bill in the Senate, which passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in April of 2025. Cortez Masto’s office said the state’s senior senator will “continue exploring all avenues to move it forward in the Senate.”
House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman said “the ramifications of the Ninth Circuit’s decision are substantial,” and urged the bill’s passage.
“Although the Rosemont decision involved Forest Service lands, it has prompted multiple lawsuits targeting projects on BLM lands based on similar regulations,” he continued.
During debate on the House floor, California Rep. Jared Huffman (D-02) questioned the notion that the Rosemount decision created significant roadblocks for the mining industry, adding he has “found no evidence that any mines are currently being held up because of the Rosemont decision anywhere in America.”
“You know what happened to the Rosemont mine after that court decision came down? The next day, the company paid for private lands for its waste disposal. Zero problem. The mine wasn’t stopped. It’s just the industry would prefer to use the public lands, your lands, and to be able to dump for free,” Huffman said on the House floor.
Huffman said several Democrats have offered several amendments to Republican leadership that would improve the bill and prevent foreign mining companies from abusing the General Mining Act of 1872.
Lee, who represents Nevada’s third district, said she supports a “Rosemont fix” but that the bill required more clarity to get it “through the Senate and to the President’s desk.”
“While I appreciate the significant improvements made to this legislation, further tightening some of the language in the bill will be essential to preventing potential abuse and misuse,” Lee said.
Lee proposed an amendment that would limit “impacts to lands that are actually necessary for mining operations” and clarify that the federal government has the authority to regulate mining on all of the public lands in its care, but that amendment was rejected.
“If my amendment had been included, I would have voted in support of the legislation,” Lee said.
On the House floor, Democrats also argued Amodei’s bill would only benefit the mining industry by making it easier for companies to develop sites without documented mineral deposits. Huffman said the bill would give too much power to—and provide too little accountability for—mining companies that already work in a favorable regulatory environment. — Jeniffer Solis, Nevada Current
Republished under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
